


Something So Divided

by okaynextcrisis



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-23
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-14 10:00:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2187528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okaynextcrisis/pseuds/okaynextcrisis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing scene from Six of One.  Bill sees the broken picture on the wall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something So Divided

Of course the picture's broken.

Everything is broken now.

He stares at the photograph, still hanging on the wall, the glass shattered, the bullet striking dead center. A bull's-eye, almost, except that Laura hadn't been aiming for the picture.

Laura had been aiming for Kara's head.

He cannot possibly articulate how grateful he is, that doubt, or doloxan, or dumb chance made her miss, that Kara is now on her way to the brig, and not to the morgue.

He does not think he could have survived that.

He is positive he could not have survived it if he'd returned to find Kara's finger on the trigger and Laura's body, broken and bleeding, on the floor.

A deep shudder runs through him, threatens to rip him to pieces, and he wonders if he can risk getting himself a drink, or if the sound—the unstopping of the bottle, the liquid sloshing into the glass—would be enough to wake Laura. She needs her rest, now more than ever. That's why she's here, in his quarters—so that she can rest, recover, so that they can put her cancer behind them again.

These rooms are small, after all, and any noise echoes, any small disturbance is magnified. These rooms are very small, actually, too small for everything they must now contain: for Laura and her cancer, for him and his grief—for her, for Kara, for Lee, for everything that's slipping through his fingers.

He stays where he is.

He's not sure if Laura noticed the picture, if she saw that her errant bullet had found a target after all. He's not sure if it would hurt her…or not touch her at all.

He can still remember the day she gave it to him, a few months before, when her cancer, Kara's death, Baltar's trial, were still on the horizon.

_She walks into his quarters with a smile on her face. "Happy anniversary."_

" _Excuse me?"_

_She stands before his desk, holding out a package carefully wrapped in newspaper. "Today is the two-year anniversary of the attacks," she informs him. "Which also makes it the two-year anniversary of the day we met, when I came on board the Galactica for the decommissioning, and a quirk of probability put the two of us in charge of this ridiculous fleet."_

_He takes the parcel from her, unwraps it. It's a picture of the two of them, taken at their first joint press conference, barely a week after the attacks. Laura's face is a mask; he looks like he wants to take a swing at the photographer. He wonders if it's obvious that they can't stand each other, or if they pulled it off, and actually looked like the united front they were trying to present._

_He can't help it; he laughs. "This is a terrible picture."_

_She laughs with him. "It is, isn't it? But look how far we've come."_

_He already knows where he's going to hang it._

"You always said it was a terrible picture."

Laura is behind him, her eyes also on the picture, on their frozen faces, staring out at them from behind shards of glass.

He still doesn't know what she's thinking.

He pauses. "I think it's just the frame that's damaged," he offers. "I can have it fixed."

The bullet in this picture was meant for Kara. It was meant for Kara because Kara sneaked into his quarters with a weapon meant for Laura.

He's not sure how he feels about either one of them, anymore.

Laura tilts her head, assessing the damage. "You think so?"

They are not talking about the picture anymore.

He doesn't answer.

He wishes he knew.

**Author's Note:**

> Title belongs to Tegan and Sara.


End file.
